Gig Work, Economic Precarity, and Fairness Ideologies in a Post-Industrial Labor Market

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 7: Platform Work

Abstract

The expansion of gig and platform-based work has reshaped employment relationships by increasing flexibility while shifting economic risk from employers to workers. Prior research has documented the growth of gig work and its association with economic precarity. Less is known about how these employment arrangements shape workers’ beliefs about fairness, social mobility, and responsibility for economic outcomes. Understanding how gig work shapes these beliefs is central to debates about inequality and the future of work, as workers interpret labor market outcomes and evaluate the meritocratic basis of economic institutions.

This project analyzes newly collected, original survey data from a representative sample of 1,500 working-age adults in Flint, Michigan and its county (Genesee), a declining industrial city with a history of stable, well-paid manufacturing work. Flint is a strategically important setting to study gig work, as current labor market experiences are shaped by the erosion of traditional blue-collar employment and the rapid emergence of platform-mediated work.

The study examines how participation in gig work is associated with perceptions of job quality, economic insecurity, and beliefs about meritocracy, fairness, and inequality. In particular, it asks whether gig workers, despite heightened precarity, are more likely to endorse individualistic interpretations of success and failure, akin to those historically associated with small business owners or the self-employed.

By linking detailed measures of work experiences to beliefs about economic opportunity and personal responsibility, the project provides new evidence for how gig work shapes economic ideologies in post-industrial labor markets. In situating the analysis in a post-industrial labor market, the project highlights how emerging forms of work are ideologically interpreted relative to earlier employment forms characterized by stability, collective bargaining, and employer-based benefits.

Author

• Jacob Lederman, University of Michigan-Flint